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While Microsoft and Sony remain mum about their new consoles, Nintendo has been pretty forthright as it moves towards kicking the new console generation off with the WiiU.

We knew it was coming soon, but WiiU Daily may have uncovered exactly when the WiiU will drop: November 18th. The information comes from internal emails circulating amongst the employees of a large Japanese video game retailer. Writes reporter Allison Wallace:

The report doesn’t mention whether the November 18 Wii U launch date is an internal target date for Nintendo, or whether the company has already committed to releasing the Wii U to the public. Considering that the original Wii launched at almost exactly the same date six years ago, we wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo stuck to this date. We’ll be marking our calendars to November 18, 2012.

The WiiU is Nintendo’s attempt to continue the momentum it brought to mainstream gaming while simultaneously recapturing some of the hardcore audience turned off by the Wii’s controls. Analysts suspect that the new system is going to be around 50% more powerful than the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. While that figure will certainly pale in comparison to whatever technological behemoths Sony and Microsoft announce next, it will give the WiiU at least a year, and possibly more, as the most powerful machine on the market.